Naples is not a city you ride through so much as one you survive and then fall in love with. The historic centre, a UNESCO site since 1995, sits on the street plan of Neapolis, the Greek new city founded around the sixth century BC, and the three ancient decumani still run straight through it, the most famous being Spaccanapoli, the street that splits Naples in two. Along them, churches, palaces, shrines, workshops and laundry-hung alleys are packed together with an intensity found nowhere else in Europe.
The treasures are endless: the cathedral with the relics of San Gennaro, whose blood is said to liquefy three times a year; the Sansevero chapel with its astonishing veiled Christ in marble; the cloister of Santa Chiara covered in majolica tiles; the underground city of Greek and Roman tunnels and cisterns; and Via San Gregorio Armeno, the street of nativity-scene makers, where figures of saints share shelf space with footballers and politicians. Maradona is everywhere, on murals and altars, a saint of the city in all but name.
Riding in Naples is an extreme sport. Scooters swarm everywhere, often carrying entire families, traffic lights are treated as suggestions, and the streets of the old centre are narrow, cobbled, slippery and crowded with pedestrians. Much of the centre has limited traffic zones, and theft of motorcycles and items left on them is a real risk, so use a secure garage and keep valuables with you. The rewards outside the city are huge: the road up Vesuvius, the coast road to Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, the Phlegraean Fields with their volcanic craters, and the hills of the Campanian interior.
Food is reason enough to come. Naples is the birthplace of pizza, and the pizzerias of Via dei Tribunali serve some of the best in the world, simple margheritas with soft, blistered crusts. Add sfogliatelle pastries, fried street food, espresso drunk standing at the bar, and you will not go hungry. Fuel is available on the main roads outside the centre. Spring and autumn offer pleasant temperatures; summer is hot and crowded, but the evenings, when the city comes alive in the streets, are magical.